Arizona, a school not known for its NFL quarterbacks, has one of its former quarterbacks in the Super Bowl as a starter.
The Wildcats join 44 other college programs that have sent a former quarterback to the Super Bowl as a starter with the Philadelphia Eagles and Nick Foles beating Minnesota 38-7 today in the NFC championship game at Philadelphia.
Foles completed 26 of 33 pass attempts for 352 yards with three touchdowns and no interceptions.
The schools with the most appearances have seven, including Michigan (by virtue of Tom Brady making it to the Super Bowl that many times), Notre Dame and Stanford (see complete list below).
Other Pac-12 schools by number of appearances of Super Bowl starting quarterbacks: California and UCLA with four, Washington State with two and Washington with one. Arizona now has one.
Foles holds numerous Arizona passing records, including career passing yards (10,011 from 2009 to 2011) and touchdowns (tied with Willie Tuitama with 67). He is married to former Arizona volleyball player Tori Moore. They celebrated the birth of their first child, Lily James, last June.
Foles is in his sixth season in the NFL after his third-round selection by Philadelphia in 2012. He is one of four quarterbacks from Arizona to advance to the NFL. Here is the list:
CAREER NFL STATS OF FORMER ARIZONA QUARTERBACKS
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ARIZONA’S NFL CAREER OFFENSIVE LEADERS
Passing Yards
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Rushing Yards
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Receiving Yards
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SCHOOLS LISTED BY SUPER BOWL STARTING QUARTERBACK APPEARANCES
Michigan (Tom Brady 7) 7
Notre Dame (Daryle Lamonica, Joe Montana 4, Joe Theismann 2) 7
Stanford (Jim Plunkett 2, John Elway 5) 7
Purdue (Len Dawson 2, Bob Griese 3, Drew Brees) 6
Alabama (Bart Starr 2, Joe Namath, Ken Stabler) 4
California (Joe Kapp, Craig Morton 2, Aaron Rodgers) 4
Louisiana Tech (Terry Bradshaw 4) 4
Miami (Fla.) (Jim Kelly 4) 4
Navy (Roger Staubach 4) 4
Tennessee (Peyton Manning 4) 4
UCLA (Billy Kilmer, Troy Aikman 3) 4
Georgia (Fran Tarkenton 3) 3
Miami (Ohio) (Ben Roethlisberger 3) 3
Northern Iowa (Kurt Warner 3) 3
Boston College (Matt Hasselbeck, Matt Ryan) 2
BYU (Jim McMahon, Steve Young) 2
Delaware (Rich Gannon, Joe Flacco) 2
Maryland (Boomer Esiasion, Neil O’Donnell) 2
Mississippi (Eli Manning 2) 2
Southern Mississippi (Brett Favre 2) 2
Washington State (Mark Rypien, Drew Bledsoe) 2
Wisconsin (Russell Wilson 2) 2
Alcorn State (Steve McNair) 1
Arizona (Nick Foles) 1
Auburn (Cam Newton) 1
Augustana (Ill.) (Ken Anderson) 1
Florida (Rex Grossman) 1
Florida State (Brad Johnson) 1
Fresno State (Trent Dilfer) 1
Grambling (Doug Williams) 1
Illinois (Tony Eason) 1
Louisiana-Lafayette (Jake Delhomme) 1
LSU (David Woodley) 1
Louisville (Johnny Unitas) 1
Michigan State (Earl Morrall) 1
Morehead State (Phil Simms) 1
Nebraska (Vince Ferragamo) 1
Nevada (Colin Kaepernick) 1
Northeast Louisiana (Stan Humphries) 1
Penn State (Kerry Collins) 1
Pittsburgh (Dan Marino) 1
Syracuse (Donovan McNabb) 1
Washington (Chris Chandler) 1
West Virginia (Jeff Hostetler) 1
Youngstown State (Ron Jaworski) 1
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ALLSPORTSTUCSON.com publisher, writer and editor Javier Morales is a former Arizona Press Club award winner. He is a former Arizona Daily Star beat reporter for the Arizona basketball team, including when the Wildcats won the 1996-97 NCAA title. He has also written articles for CollegeAD.com, Bleacher Report, Lindy’s Sports, TucsonCitizen.com, The Arizona Republic, Sporting News and Baseball America, among many other publications. He has also authored the book “The Highest Form of Living”, which is available at Amazon.
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